While many aspects of the construction industry have benefited by advancements in technology, the location of footings and the guides used to indicate where prospective walls are to be placed remains curiously primative. The common technique in laying out foundations involves the use of "batter boards".
Typically, to show the presence of a future wall, a piece of scrap lumber configured as a stake is driven in the ground at each end of the prospective wall and a string extends therebetween. The string is intended to be tangent to the outer surface of the wall to be constructed. A first problem arises in placement of the stakes because not all of the ground encountered is equally receptive for the placement of stakes therein. Thus, frequently the stake cannot be oriented coincident with the plane of the outer surface of the wall.
To overcome this, a board is frequently nailed to extend horizontally from one or more stakes which has been driven in the ground to offset the stake and provide alignment for a string and the future wall. First, it should be noted that placement of the horizontal board onto the stake by nailing is awkward without removal of the stake and using a surface for support when driving the nails. Second, such an arrangement suffers in accuracy because the resulting arrangement is unstable, particularly because the horizontal board may be installed as an after thought. Third, using this method, the system operates best when the stakes are driven in the ground vertically. Because the ground can be rocky in the area for placing stakes, the process can be a frustrating experience.
The evolution in the batter board system is perhaps best reflected in U.S. Pat. No. 4,080,739, to Ruhaak. It should be pointed out that all of the problems listed supra are present in this system, along with a few additional problems. Instead of needing a single spot where the ground in receptive to a stake, this system requires at least two such spots because the vertical posts describing this invention must be maintained perfectly vertical and parallel to one another.